


deep blue but you painted me golden

by amyscascadingtabs



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Dating, Early Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Internal Monologue, Kissing, Neck Kissing, Season/Series 03, very light though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 21:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18374378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyscascadingtabs/pseuds/amyscascadingtabs
Summary: Alternative title: And for god's sake, protect the neck!Amy learns about one of the downsides to staying over at her boyfriend's place.





	deep blue but you painted me golden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johnny-and-dora (sian_jpg)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian_jpg/gifts).



> title from dancing with our hands tied by taylor swift.  
> this was meant to be a birthday gift for siân but it's one day late so, now it's a late birthday gift. hope you enjoy it anyway <3

Amy Santiago is a woman of her word.

Therefore it falls naturally that when her boyfriend of four and a half months switches his lumpy dumpster mattress for a brand new model, she stays true to her promise and starts sleeping at his place more.

_ A lot _ more. Definitely more than she'd been aiming for. Had it not been for her pet fish and absolute refusal to wear a clothing item with any type of stain to work, the detective is certain she'd manage a full workweek without glancing her own apartment.

 

To her defense, there are plenty of smart benefits to how much she's staying there. Jake's apartment is closer to work, has a surprisingly good shower, and if she manages to motivate him, sometimes he’ll even  _ cook _ . It’s a tempting and clever option, perhaps even a professional one when she’s worked overtime on a demanding homicide investigation and has to be back at work early the next morning, and she repeats these reasons under her breath whenever she judges herself for having become the cheesy girlfriend who spends each and every night at her boyfriend’s place.

 

Though of course, she’d be lying if she said there weren’t  _ other _ benefits associated with staying at the Cobblestink studio. Sleeping alone in her own apartment doesn’t allow her the sight of her newly awakened boyfriend moving around in the apartment looking for clean clothes with sleep-ruffled hair and nothing but boxers on, nor the heart-melting view of how he’ll hog the no-longer-shared duvet and roll himself to a sleepy blanket burrito when she gets out of bed first, not the way he’ll smile so wide without opening his eyes when she places a cup of coffee on his nightstand and a light peck to his forehead. Last but not least, staying over at Jake Peralta’s apartment gives her the opportunity to use her most efficient and doubtlessly favored techniques in the art of rousing him from sleep. She'll do this with kisses, starting as soft presses to the exposed skin near his neck before growing more serious when he hums and wraps his arms around her, one of her hands playing with his hair while the other one lightly skims his waistband. He'll react with his hands moving under and up her shirt, fondling as their lips, then tongues, meet.   
  


The ways in which she can make her boyfriend go from deep asleep to fully awake in a few minutes are few, but they are foolproof. 

 

As reliable a tactic and as effective a morning mood-booster as it is, there are, inevitably, occasions when it backfires and they’re forced to rush in order to arrive at the 99th precinct on time. Amy Santiago adores her boyfriend, but she also adores coming to work on time. She’ll be damned before she willingly arrives less than thirty minutes before the morning briefing. 

 

This Wednesday, however, is the first time she’s been late since the god-awful morning there was a problem at the bank. 

“Fifteen minutes before briefing is not late”, Jake insists when she complains to him after they’ve stepped into the elevator. “My standard, if you recall, is five.”

“I do recall”, she mumbles, adjusting a wry button on her periwinkle blouse, buttoned in all haste after the morning. “And I refuse to sink to your level of untimeliness. Me being your girlfriend doesn’t mean you get to corrupt me.”

A proud grin appears on his lips. “You’re my girlfriend.”

“I’ve been your girlfriend for four months.”

“I know”, he says with the same sunshine smile. “It’s still cool when you say it out loud.” 

_ Dork _ , she wants to tell him with a chaste kiss. She leans in, touching her nose with his, but the universe is not done playing tricks with her - right as she’s about to go for it, the elevator doors fly open and the couple breaks apart in an instant. Charles high-pitched squeal remains loud enough to make the entire floor aware of their arrival.

 

~

 

Despite the near-tardy arrival and humiliating elevator-incident, Amy does manage to be productive once she gets a start on her workload for the day. She replies to four emails, adds a few points to her to-do-list for the day, and listens attentively to Terry’s briefing even as she senses Charles’ looking at her throughout. At one occasion she glares back at him, finding him with a delighted smile on his lips and tears in his eyes.  _ Weird _ , Amy thinks to herself - her and Jake are not even sitting together and she's made sure her outfit and hair looks immaculate despite her getting dressed and fixing her hair in under ten minutes. Then again, Charles has a tendency to get teary-eyed whenever her and Jake as much as sit next to each other at Shaw's, so she brushes it off as a classic case of Boyle Obsession.

 

She grows suspicious when it doesn’t pass. Most days, the 99’s detectives will start working on their cases and whatever insignificant details are interrupting their focus will with time seem less interesting than new leads or ideas. Jake and Terry leave for a couple hours of door duty where there's been a recent string of B&E’s. Hitchcock and Scully order six different pizzas to try and settle a bet on who's more lactose intolerant, and everyone else in the room moves as far away from the pair as possible. Captain Holt instructs Gina on organizing a file cabinet and she moves three folders before returning her attention to her phone. Amy and Rosa go through witness statements from the same alluded case of drug trafficking they’ve been working for a week. Her workday is moving at its usual pace, yet she can't shake the feeling she's being watched. Every now and then Gina looks up at her with a snicker and a scrunch of her nose, and all the way from her desk, Amy can feel the intense looks Charles keeps aiming at her.

 

She tries to ignore it. She really does. No matter what judgeful comments Gina has to offer about her outfit or what she's done to invoke Charles obsession-high today, Amy has a job to do and she's certain they must stop at some point. First when it's been an hour of their knowing gazes getting on her nerves, does she shoot them both a warning look that appears to pass them by.

She turns page, tapping the neon yellow highlighter against the paper and trying to focus on the transcribed statement, but her curiosity has officially shifted from the case to the question of  _ what on Earth about her is making people stare _ . 

“Rosa?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Do you have any idea”, she treads carefully, “why Charles and Gina are staring at me like I went to work wearing a clown mask? It’s distracting.”

Rosa doesn’t look up from her papers, her deadpan expression intact. “Nope. No idea.” 

“You’re not even looking at me.”

Her friend sighs, closing the stapled stack of papers using the pen as a bookmark and looks at Amy for about three seconds before she snorts, holding her fist to her mouth to muffle a subtle bout of laughter. 

“Now I have to know”, Amy insists. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on!”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course I do”, she wheezes, leaning in. “What’s making people stare? Tell me!”

“I’m no expert, but it could be the obvious hickey on your neck.” Rosa grins, touching a spot an inch below Amy’s right ear. “There.  Probably wasn’t visible when you wore your hair down, but you put your hair in a ponytail before the briefing, so…”

“What?” She reaches for her phone, opening the camera to selfie mode so she can see for herself, and sure enough, there’s a bruise. It’s a distinctly non-ambiguous one at that; a dark red-and-purple mark where she, if she thinks hard enough, can remember Jake’s mouth being earlier that morning. She doesn’t remember being aware of him sucking hard enough to leave a mark, which shocks her especially since he’s aware of how unprofessional she considers visible hickeys, but she supposes it’s plausible they were both too... in the moment, to notice.

It doesn’t matter to her now. She’s still mad at him.

 

“I’m going to  _ kill _ Jake when I see him”, she asserts, rubbing at the bruise as if that would make it go away. “I swear. I don’t even have concealer with me.”

“Oh, don’t do that.” Rosa’s already returned most of her attention to the statements. “Captain Holt’s already complaining about how homicides are up, meaning we’ll all suffer the consequences if you do. Not cool, Amy.”

“ _ That’s _ your issue with it?”

“Nah, but it’s fun to see you flustered when you realize the whole precinct can see you got laid this morning.”

“They can’t see that, technically -”

“Nope, but you didn’t deny it.” Rosa looks up again, looking smug as ever before doing some kind of wink at Gina which Amy can’t really interpret, and Amy feels her cheeks heat while she dreams of sinking through the floor.

 

~

 

Despite her fierce temptation to call up her boyfriend and yell at him immediately, she realizes it’s not the best of options. She has to be professional, which is why she takes out the ponytail and tries to keep her hair covering the bruise.

Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. 

“Amy”, she hears a familiar voice when Rosa leaves for a break - it’s unclear what she’s doing, but Gina seems to have left with her - and she’s alone at her desk, leaving every chance in the world for a wild Charles Boyle to appear. “Oh, Ames.”

“Please don’t”, she mumbles. “I already know.” 

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of”, the detective assures her. “The opposite. Honestly, I think you two are doing the world a favor with your lack of fear to openly display your love for one another.”

“It was an  _ accident _ .”

“Nothing is ever truly an accident.” Charles has a daydreaming look in his eyes. “Not with the intimate, burning, flawless love you and Jake have. In fact, I think you should show it openly much more often. I strongly believe it would make the world a better place.” 

She glares at him. “Back. Away.”

“Oh, but you know I’m right”, he shrugs, and then waltzes off with more confidence than she’s ever seen in the man. 

 

It’s afternoon by the time Jake and Terry return. By afternoon, Amy has been given an exorbitant amount of affectionate glances aimed at her neck from Charles, a few more snickers from Gina, and even the odd glance from a passing-by beat cop who must've seen the bruise peeking through her hair. Therefore, when the familiar figure pops down in the chair at the desk across from hers and is all gleeful smiles the moment he sees her, Amy’s rightfully annoyed. Her being teased is  _ his _ fault and she's furious.

“So I just solved a pretty epic case on my own”, he brags, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back. “Well, pretty much solved. Pretty much on my own. Terry helped, and we’re not totally- _ totally  _ done yet, but whatever. You impressed by me?”

She looks up at him with reluctance, meeting those coffee-colored eyes immune to seeing the mess on his own desk but so capable of seeing through  _ her _ . His hair is messier now than this morning, and when she doesn't reply to his question immediately he leans forward to put his elbows on his desk, scrunching his nose and putting his fists under his chin to grab her attention.

It's utterly adorable. She wouldn't admit it publicly and doesn’t either, remaining focused on her computer screen instead, but seeing him again after a few hours makes her want to forgive him in an instant.

“That's great, Jake.”

He narrows his eyes at her short response. “Is something up?”

“Meet me in the evidence room in five”, she whispers, giving no further explanation. Jake gives her a curious look, as if he’s not sure whether she’s going to make out with him or yell at him based on the poker-face she’s working hard to maintain. To be fair - when he smiles at her in that specific, adoring way, Amy’s not sure either.

 

~

 

The way he swoops in and checks the door behind him before walking up to where she’s standing reminds her of their first real kiss. Although this room is also the location of them startling and consequently killing a man with a genetic heart condition, not to mention a part of her workplace where she’s spent enough hours for it to feel unremarkable and habitual, it’s always, in a way, going to be  _ their room _ . She wonders if he’s thinking the same thing.

 

“Hey there.” He keeps his hands in his jean pockets as he leans close enough to peck her lips. “Did you want to talk about something? Or simply have a moment in peace with your unbelievably hot, super-sexy boyfriend? Remember”, he says with a raise of his eyebrows. “As we once so tragically discovered, they do have cameras here. “

Amy rolls her eyes, shaking her head at his jokes and how desperately they make her want to give into laughter, then pulls her hair aside to point a demonstrative index finger at the hickey. “What in the world, Jake Peralta, is this?”

“What? Oh, ohhh. I see.” He looks down at the floor, blushing as he rubs one hand along his neck to adjust the collar of his flannel. “Shit, Ames. I’m sorry.”

“You should be”, she mutters with a pained grimace. “Gina’s been laughing at me all day, and Charles is over the moon, which is nearly as distracting.”

“I didn’t even notice it.”

“Yeah, well, neither did I before I put my hair up and everyone started teasing me. Either way -”, she puts a finger to his chest, “it’s your fault.”

He grins, running a hand through his hair before holding hers with it, their fingers intertwined against his heartbeat. “I’ll make it up to you?”

“You better.”

“If it matters, I think it’s pretty cute.”

“Shut up.”

“Hot too, for that matter.”

“Shut.  _ Up _ ”, Amy wheezes, though this time partly out of frustration over the effect his faked innocent smile has on her, how looking at him so close when it’s noone but them (and a few cameras) still makes her legs a little shaky, pulse a little higher. 

She squeezes his hand tighter, and because she’s not in heels today, she stands up on the tip of her toes when she kisses him. His hands rest on her upper back, holding her as she lets herself melt into him for a couple seconds, giving his lip a light bite to remind him he’s not forgiven. It’s unclear whether it serves his purpose, because he just smiles against her lips and technically she’s still annoyed with him but he’s kissing her  _ like that _ and her annoyance can wait.

 

First when she realizes how she’s lifting one of her legs, her knee moving towards his waist, and how her hands are tempted to wander strictly non-work-appropriate places, does she make the agonizing decision of pulling away and separating them. They’re almost panting as they do, taking deep breaths to get themselves back to reality.

“So”, he mumbles, chuckling lightly. “I take it I’m forgiven?”

“Oh, no. I’ll get my revenge.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt you on that.”

 

She does get her revenge a few days later. Amy Santiago’s a woman of her word, after all. 

(She wouldn't admit it out loud, but it's  _ totally _ worth another day of Charles giving them both lovesick glares for hours on end.)

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! please leave kudos or even a comment if you did because it always makes my day. if you tell me your fave parts or quotes i will love you forever.
> 
> i have very little time to write with school and work and life right now, so be patient with me - i promise you i have some good ideas worth waiting for! <3


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